Donations menu

You are here

News & Stories

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) frequently publishes updates, press releases, and other forms of communication about its work in more than 60 countries around the world. See the list below for the most recent updates or search by location, topic, or year.

The airstrikes came just minutes apart on the morning of February 15, 2016, shattering a large hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Syria’s Idlib Province. It was a "double tap" attack in which the pilots circled back after dropping thier initial payload to drop more bombs on the people who responded to the first attack. All told, 25 people were killed, including five children. Among the adult fatalities were a doctor, a chief nurse, five nurses, and a lab technician. The raids were carried out by forces loyal to the Syrian government.

These photos show the aftermath of an attack on one of the key surgical hospitals in eastern Aleppo during airstrikes on November 17, 2016. The damage was so extensive that the hospital was forced to halt service immediately. The hospital had an emergency room, an intensive care unit, and a number of operating theaters providing orthopedic and general surgery.

Dr. Abu Wassim was working inside the East Aleppo hospital that was hit by airstrikes on November 17, 2016. Here, in an interview recorded a week later, he tells the story of that day:

“We started hearing shells raining down on the buildings at the end of the street, about 500 meters away from the hospital. We heard 40 or more shells exploding, with the noise moving closer and closer towards the hospital. That’s when all the staff—technicians, nurses and doctors—evacuated all the patients down to the basement.

On his way to meet friends for coffee not long ago, Abu Ahmed*, a 27-year-old computer repairman living in eastern Aleppo, was injured by a cluster bomb. Four weeks later, his bone fracture has failed to heal. His only hope is specialist orthopedic surgery in Turkey, but Abu Ahmed cannot leave his besieged hometown. Bedridden, he now watches in despair as his neighborhood is further reduced to rubble after the latest waves of unrelenting airstrikes.

Even as bombs fall on east Aleppo, babies are being born into the besieged city. For their mothers, experiencing pregnancy and childbirth in such desperate conditions is extremely challenging, both physically and psychologically.

The difficulties begin in early pregnancy. The siege has led to severe food shortages, and many pregnant women are undernourished, which can lead to severe anemia and other health problems for mother and child alike.

A doctor* in a makeshift clinic in the East Ghouta area near Damascus told MSF the following about the latest attacks in the area:

In the past three weeks, we’ve experienced new waves of strikes coming from the sky and the ground. These strikes have been hitting residential areas, particularly schools. There are still functioning medical centers but we are barely coping with this new wave of violence.

The intensity of attacks in besieged areas near Damascus and Homs has increased dramatically once more, leading to significant increases in mass casualty influxes.

Just today, Friday, multiple airstrikes again hit East Ghouta, an area of besieged towns near Damascus. Medics in the area are reporting many casualties, including women and children, but the tally of today’s war-wounded and war-dead is not yet complete.

The newly renovated intensive care unit (ICU) at Sulaymaniyah Emergency Hospital officially opened on November 19. The new ICU has a 10-bed capacity, including two beds in an isolation room for the most at-risk patients, says Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been able to confirm that two hospitals in besieged eastern Aleppo were hit by airstrikes on November 16, one day after ferocious airstrikes on the opposition-held area of the city resumed.
The hospitals that came under attack were a children’s hospital and a specialized surgical hospital. Both were supported by MSF, among other organizations.